The bane of a computer user's existence is the ubiquitous computer crash. Computers unexpectedly display unusual messages on the display, displays show unusual patterns or colors, and keyboards and mice freeze up, causing the computer user consternation and grief. Ultimately, the computer user can do no more than yell at the computer and press the reset or power button to reboot the computer. Unsaved data may be lost in addition to the time and aggravation.
While many computer crashes are caused by poorly-written computer code or “bugs”, malware such as computer viruses, Trojan programs, adware, spyware, and other malicious programs can also cause crashes, and may even cause all data on the hard drive to be destroyed. Anti-virus and other security software can scan for such malware, but there is still the danger of newly-written viruses that do not match known viruses in a virus definitions database. These newly-minted viruses can destroy system files on several machines before the virus centers react to them with updated virus definitions.
Certain operating systems (OS), because of their popularity or hackers' hatred of the OS company, are particular targets of virus writers. Other operating systems have fewer viruses, perhaps because these OS's are open-source and perceived as more socially correct, or perhaps because these OS's are less widely used.
FIG. 1 shows a computer that has crashed due to a virus or other malware. Computer 10 was running a popular OS such as Microsoft's Windows. The user of computer 10 has contacted a new virus, perhaps by downloading an email attachment with a virus, or from a questionable web site. The virus is not in the user's virus definitions database, perhaps because the user has not updated his virus definitions for some time, or perhaps because the virus is new, or perhaps because the user does not use anti-virus software. This virus is malicious, displaying a provocative message on the computer screen, and perhaps damaging or destroying the user's data files, or sending confidential data to a criminal party.
When the user sees that a virus has attacked his computer, the user can reboot or restart his computer, but that may simply allow the malware more time to attack his computer and delete more user files. The user could try to update his virus definitions database, but the virus may prevent this update, and more damage may be done before the update is completed and the anti-virus program can be run to wipe out the virus.
Small portable Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices with flash memory are widely used to store data files. A USB device may be used to regularly back up data from computer 10. Some USB devices may allow the user to run programs or play music or audio files. These USB devices may themselves carry viruses to computer 10.
What is desired is a USB device that can allow recovery from a computer crash or virus. A USB device that has multiple partitions with different operating systems is desirable for use in virus recovery.